When travelling internationally, many debit/credit card holders would like to use their cards to conduct financial transactions abroad. However, banks are very cautious and are concerned about fraud and their inability to recoup for fraudulent international losses. This results in banks exercising strict controls including placing a daily allowance or transaction limit on the cardholder's accounts. Notwithstanding these controls, some banks require their cardholders to notify the bank of upcoming international use and/or make prior arrangements for extending their daily allowance or transaction limit prior to leaving the resident country. Some banks have even more onerous restrictions and require additional in-person identity verification, which may include vigorous questioning and communication with the domestic bank prior to allowing financial transactions of a substantial amount in a foreign country even if the funds are available in the account. The issuing bank's argument being that such controls are in place to protect the cardholder's account from fraudulent transactions.
However, the time difference between the resident country and abroad can wreak havoc in trying to accomplish a financial transaction in a timely manner considering all the identity verification and international calls required prior to the transaction being authorized. Thus, there needs to be a system and method for easily validating the identity of a debit/credit cardholder for international use of an electronic data card for financial transactions that is easy, with minimal inconvenience to the cardholder, yet secure.
Accordingly, the various embodiments and disclosures described herein satisfy these long felt needs and solves the limitations of the prior art in a new and novel manner.